


Envy is a Nasty Thing

by Maria_Laney



Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Jealousy, Pining, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-12 16:13:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29013375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maria_Laney/pseuds/Maria_Laney
Summary: David pities Sarah, because Sarah likes Jack.
Relationships: Sarah Jacobs/Jack Kelly
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	Envy is a Nasty Thing

**Author's Note:**

> This is unedited and I'm functioning on minimal hours of sleep. Mistakes? I know her, yeah.

Jack came over for supper that wintery night for good reason. Or maybe David goaded him into it, nobody could ever be quite sure. But Esther _did_ know that Jack always looked rather glad to spend time with their family, to be indoors, to have food on the table when he wasn’t always so sure he’d get any at all, especially now when it was harder to come by than ever. Sometimes Esther didn’t know if they’d have enough to feed everybody herself, but she refused to turn away a child in need. She was even more adamant on this stance when that child was a friend of one of her own. In this case, all of them at once. 

She noticed Jack looked more exhausted than he usually did as soon as he came in, used to the youthful brightness in his eyes after enough nights of sitting across from him at the table. 

Jack looked ill, Esther decided, tactfully recruiting Sarah to go convince him to stay the night once the boys had all left the table. It would do him good to rest by the fire rather than end up walking all the way back to that lodging house of his through the sleet and snow pelting their foggy windows. It was coming down much harder than it had been at the start of their meal. Esther had been watching, building up a basis for her firm decision that Mayer promptly agreed with.

Sarah accepted the challenge, any enthusiasm she might have had for Jack staying over after weeks of barely seeing him at all masked with perfect rationality. It was a practical decision, anyway. If Jack was coming down with something, it would come down on him full swing as soon as he stepped foot out there. 

Sarah turned towards the wood stove Jack was gathered around with Les, David hurrying off to fetch something from his room. Les was showing Jack the new box of little wooden soldiers he’d gotten for his birthday. 

She went over to sit down with them. Jack smiled at her, and she really wished it hadn’t snowed at all despite how much she loved the winter, so they could go up to the rooftop and be alone.

Esther calls David over to help her clear the table in Sarah’s place. Jack only glances at him once before Sarah grips his attention again. David noticed.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why Sarah was being absolved of her turn to help out. It didn’t take David very long at all, piecing it all together with the final stinging indicator in the form of his mother’s fond smile down at the water basin.

His lips turned into a strained frown, looking over his shoulder at the corner of the room. Sarah and Jack were talking with their heads close together like they were sharing some kind of secret. Her hand was on his knee.

David ruefully turned back to the sink as his mother piled up dishes beside it.

Maybe taking a much needed tumble down the icy fire escape would do him some good today, knock some sense into him since nothing else could seem to do the trick. There was no reason for him to resent his sister like this. For what, anyway? Jack’s attention? Sarah had a nasty habit of writing in surnames for herself on one too many pages of her diary. There was good reason for that this time, though.

Jack was a good guy. Handsome and tall and clever, in a sensible, practical way that David nearly overlooked one too many times. The only reason Jack didn't already have a girl to occupy his attention was probably because none could stand him long enough for it to count. David knew firsthand how difficult it could be to try and get close to him, pry away the protective barriers that sealed his feelings about the most mundane things behind closed doors. He was difficult and stupid about being difficult. David was getting better at reading him, not his expressions but the natural lies he would make up on the spot in response to certain questions. Jack was too talented for him to tell all the time, but he could differentiate when he was being genuine about something and when he wasn’t. Like when he talked about his birthdate (which David still didn’t know for sure, there were still several potential days in the running) or his family (which he claimed to simply not have at all) or such common things that made absolutely no sense to lie about, the things that genuinely made David’s blood boil. There was nothing malicious in David for Jack to be worried about him spreading his business to anyone else, but to lie about his favorite color? What the hell was the merit in that? What was so awful about David knowing his favorite color?

David didn’t like calling people names. That was for kids taunting each other in the schoolyard, for when he was so outrageously angry and he wanted to hit Jack right where it hurt, jabbing at the broad difference in their lives in that David had the opportunity to go to school and Jack didn’t. He thought that Jack could act really damn stupid sometimes, but he never said it aloud, because saying that and letting Jack know he meant it was a good way to make Jack disappear for days and days until David begrudgingly went to apologize himself.

Finally, David identified the constriction in his chest as pity. Pity for Sarah, because someday she would have to deal with the side of Jack he was already working at, and then it wouldn’t be his problem anymore. That was for the best, anyway. She’d get him all to herself like she deserved, because the best of Jack outweighed the worst by a longshot. The worst made it all the more rewarding when they had those nice moments up on the roof, or at the harbor, or drenched in sunset gold talking about things they normally wouldn’t talk about. Seeing Jack smile and laugh and shine in his own skin like he always should, the present occupying his torrential mind more than the past ever could before it all came crashing down again.

Jack unveiled the worst in people, and the best. He would make Sarah crazy like he made everyone who fell under his spell crazy, inclined to say and do insane things they wouldn’t ordinarily do. Inspire venomous envy when anybody else went near him, threatened to encroach on claimed progress, picking up the axe where the last person had left it, made to start chipping away all over again.

Not that David would know anything about that. He scrubbed the plate he’d picked from the stack harder. Poor Sarah.


End file.
